Page 182 of The Last Remaining Light

You do not understand the kind of attention surrounding you lately.

At the time she had assumed he was speaking about politics. About scholars and councils and the endless maneuvering that seemed to govern life in Veylspire.

Now she wondered if he had been trying to warn her about something else entirely.

She blinked and forced her attention back to the path ahead.

All this time, she had mistaken his protection for opposition.

Elowynn chanced a look at Lora. She was openly gaping at Vaelor.

She wasn't the only one blindsided by the revelation.

Vaelor lifted his lantern with his good arm. “Come. We’re almost there.”

"Almost where, though?” Alyra sighed.

Vaelor only shook his head.

“You’ll see.”

None of them trusted him completely, but they needed to see what lay at the center of it all. They had come this far, after all. And they couldn't turn back.

Another steep descent ended in another chamber, each one more ancient than the last.

The room was circular, with massive pillars surrounding a central platform carved from black stone. Resonance channels converged upon the center from every direction, and dozens of stabilization sigils covered the surrounding floor.

Most of them were broken. Cracks spread through the sigils like fractures in glass. Entire sections had gone dark. Several channels no longer carried resonance at all, while others flickered weakly with unstable pulses of silver light.

The damage looked recent, too. Not centuries old.

Elowynn gasped as she covered her mouth with one hand. It took several breaths before she trusted her voice enough to speak.

“These fractures are recent. Whatever this system was designed to do, it is actively breaking down.”

Vaelor stepped onto the platform and stared down at the damaged carvings.

For the first time since finding him, Elowynn saw something she never expected to see on the man’s face.

Helplessness.

The sight made her fear come to the surface of her logic.

Then that same faint vibration from above passed through the floor again. It lasted only a few breaths before fading, and this time it felt much closer.

Caelyn's head snapped toward the darkness beyond the chamber, his already pallid expression losing the rest of its color.

Elowynn's stomach cramped as the urge to flee swept through her.

"What is it?" she whispered to him.

He didn't answer immediately. When he finally looked at her, his eyes were completely black, thick veins pulsing beneath his skin.

"The source. It’s near."

Chapter Forty-One

“Entire villages vanished during Blackwake. The footprints all led in the same direction.”